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Graham Watson joins Toro Rosso

Scuderia Toro Rosso has announced the arrival of Graham Watson as the replacement for Steve Nielsen, who has moved to Williams. Watson will have the title team manager and joins the Italian team from Caterham. He has been working in motorsport since 1989 when he joined the Ford World Rally Team as a mechanic. He stayed in rallying until 1994 when he moved to Paul Stewart Racing in Formula 3000 before moving on up the ladder to join the Benetton F1 Team in 1996. That led to a switch to BAR Honda in 2001 and when it became Honda F1 in 2004 he was appointed Engineering Liaison Manager. After Honda dumped the team in 2009 the new Brawn F1 had to make cutbacks and Watson departed to work briefly in the World Touring Car Championship with RML’s Chevrolet team. By the end of 2010, however, he was back in F1 with the Lotus (soon to be Caterham) team as team manager and he has been there ever since. The demise of Caterham in recent months means that he will now head to Italy for a new chapter in a long career in F1.